What You Need to Know About Avoiding Neti Pot Risk and Neti Pot Death

Press release, Mar. 7th, 2013

The neti pot has been in the news lately with celebrity endorsements and scares over the risk of “neti pot death” from water contaminated with the brain-eating amoeba. The FDA has issued warnings on the need for sanitary and careful use, and numerous health authorities have also issued warning. More recently, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities have weighed in on the benefits of neti pots and helped drive what was a niche product into the mainstream. Despite this new publicity, neti pots, along with their related technologies of nasal irrigators and bulky saline rinses, are still primitive technology. This has left many sinus suffrerers, especially those who are away from home a lot, such as business people, frequent flyers and families planning vacations, looking for safer and more travel-friendly solutions.

Sinus rinsing goes back some 3,500 years and the neti pot, a teapot-like device that was used to rinse sinuses, has roots in ancient Ayurvedic medicine in India. Occasional sinus rinsing can be effective, clearing nasal and sinus congestion found in conditions such as chronic sinusitis, the common cold, sinus infections and seasonal allergies. But the neti pot and other rinsing devices are bulky and cumbersome, requiring substantial volumes of water in a messy process. When used with impure water, contamination and death can result. And you can get too much of a good thing: daily sinus rinsing has been found to increase the frequency of rhinovirus infections, and using tap water or untreated water directly in the neti pot can be deadly.

This “neti pot death risk” can be avoided by boiling tap water first or by buying distilled water. Experts also suggest frequently washing the neti pot to avoid buildup of mold or other microbes. Using a neti pot safely has become an even more time-consuming, laborious and non-travel-friendly process. As a result, the market for neti pot solutions and advanced saline rinses is now seeing a wealth of new products and innovations including new types of neti pots and sterile sinus rinses in bottles and sprayers.

And it looks like technology and the consumer are winning. Sinox Health, the makers of travel-friendly alternative to the neti pot, Snoot! Nasal Cleanser has released results of a recent survey that shows users prefer its high-tech drug-free sinus cleanser over 10-to-1 when compared to standard saline rinses and neti pots. “Snoot! Cleanser is neti pot 2.0”, says Jack Skeels, CEO of Sinox Health. “We’ve created a high-tech saline-based cleanser that blows them away. We started out trying to make a better neti pot rinse and then realized that it would fit in a tiny sprayer you can use anywhere!”

Snoot! Nasal Cleanser is a saline-based rinse that includes advanced mucus cleansing ingredients and acidified sodium chlorite, whose FDA-approved uses include food and water sanitation. Acidified sodium chlorite is also used in many mouthwashes preferred by dentists. Snoot comes in a small 20ml spray bottle and requires only a few quick squirts to be effective. By contrast, neti pots typically require 8-12 ounces of sterile warm water and take several minutes to prepare.

Health care professionals of all types are embracing this handy drug-free rinse for a variety of conditions. “We think this product is a game-changer!”, says Chad Edwards, of the Tennessee Centers for Laser Dentistry, “Our customers love it and use it to fight back sinus colds all the time. We tell everyone about it.”

“This is really just the first lap of the race to provide next-generation sinus care without the negatives of antihistamines, decongestants, steroids or surgical procedures”, adds Skeels, “treating the whole body with drugs to get rid of what is largely a mucus problem will become a thing of the past.” Findings from the Mayo Clinic seem to confirm Skeels’ perspective. Their research found that mucus itself, and the immune system’s reaction to what’s in the mucus, is often the source of chronic sinus conditions.

"This is a new wave of innovation", adds Skeels "where ours and other companies are giving sinus sufferers the ultimate, drug-free upgrade to the 3,500 year old neti pot."

The High-Tech Neti Rinse

Snoot! Cleanser has all three types of ingredients that you’ll find in a traditional neti pot solution, but does it high-tech: Snoot! has the best blend of acidifiers, carbonates and salts of any sinus rinse. And as a result, it uses a lot less water. The typical neti pot rinse is about 8 ounces. Snoot! contains acidified sodium chlorite for its superior cleansing capabilities, as well as its laboratory-proven ability to attack and kill a wide range of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses, spores, yeast, fungus, and bio-film.

The acidified sodium chlorite found in Snoot! Cleanser was first discovered two hundred years ago. It is used in the high-tech mouthwashes preferred by many dentists, and also in many modern US and European municipal drinking water systems, because of its safety and effectiveness. Snoot! Cleanser does not contain what is commonly called "chlorine" (aka, "laundry bleach", technically known as sodium hypochlorite, which is bad stuff).

When you use Snoot! you'll get a good rinse with about one milliliter of spray...that's about a 30th of an ounce, a fifth of a teaspoon.

That means that you'll get a whole month of neti pots or saline rinses in every Snoot! kit you buy. It comes in a travel-friendly 4-oz size box and with an even smaller sprayer. Each box fills the sprayer 5-6 times and will last you over a month of continuous use!

There's No Comparison!

We've provided the chart on the right to highlight some of the big differences between the typical neti pot device and Snoot! Nasal Cleanser. Snoot! is much easier to use and much more convenient.

Mix Snoot! once, use it for a week.

Mixing neti pot solution is a bit of a pain -- you need a stove or microwave to make clean (boiled) water (note: you must use sterile water in a neti pot in order to use it safely). Even if you have purified water on hand, you still may need to warm it in order to mix better with the neti mix, and for comfort when it is in your nasal passages. That takes a little while to do as well, usually several minutes. And you need to do it EACH and EVERY TIME you use the neti.

Snoot! Nasal Cleanser's sterile solution requires mixing only once per 5-7 days, you can mix it pretty much anywhere, and it takes just a minute or so to measure the two solutions and mix them into the handy Snoot! sprayer. With Snoot! you don't need a kitchen, microwave, or water.

The no-mess 10-second neti pot.

Neti pots are messy, and Snoot is not! With Snoot! you don't need a bathroom or a sink. It is as fast as easy as just a couple of squirts up each nostril and then a quick blow with a tissue. There is not "pot" left to clean and dry after each use. Just replace the sprayer's protective cap and get back to whatever you were doing...within seconds.

Snoot! Nasal Cleanser goes with you ANYWHERE.

Snoot! was designed for convenience. Its handy 20ml nasal spray bottle lets you carry 5-7 days of Snoot! with you wherever you go. You can use it in a meeting, on the airplane or in the airport, at the gym, and pretty much everywhere that you WOULD NOT want to be seen using a neti pot.

But most important: what real Snoot users say....

The chart on the right shows the results of a survey that has been running since 2012. People who use Snoot! prefer it more than 10-to-1 over neti pots and saline. Snoot! Nasal Cleanser has given people sinus relief and freed them from a cycle of seemingly endless misery. They say that they'll never use their neti pot again.